Environment Articles

Victoria is the vanguard of states in major struggles over the control and use of public lands. These comprise around 35 per cent of the state, the majority of which is in parks and reserves that aim to minimise human impact. Such areas have long been seen as under-managed and infested with exotic flora and

The rising price of gold is stimulating a boom in new activity. However, Victoria is one state government standing firm against this and other productive developments.  Victoria has a little over four million hectares, 18 per cent of the state, in areas classified as National Parks. Already, only about a quarter of thi

I have a Spectator article ($) addressing new bans on rural, mining and recreational activities proposed in 77,000 hectares of the Victorian Goldfields region north of Melbourne.  The agenda involves converting the targeted area, which has no remarkable features, from State Forest to National Park.

A couple of weeks ago I launched an excellent book, GOING ‘GREEN’ Forests, fire and a flawed conservation culture by Mark Poynter. I recalled that in earlier years there was a body that grandly called itself the Competent Authority. It was in fact just a bunch of bureaucrats who acted as a retarder to the vehement

In a reprise of the feeding of the 5000 with five loaves and two fish, the Energy Security Board has offered salvation for the Australian economy with the National Energy Guarantee (NEG).

Radical groups demonise specific goods and services causing them to be banned or imposing increased costs on buyers and sellers The instigators of this activity describe each new ban or cost imposition as having only minor effects – indeed in some cases, like preventing the use of cheap fossil fuels, embargos

Yesterday the Commonwealth government gave environmental approval to Project Sea Dragon, a $2 billion scheme involving prawn farming in the North. According to reports it will increase the national prawn catch by 55 per cent and employ 1400 people in activities that deliver real worth involving willing

There are three pertinent pieces in today’s media covering the economy-crippling policies that our political elites are pursuing by attacking property rights and promoting their own favoured economic and political outcomes. First we have Barnaby Joyce with a wonderful op ed which is worth quoting at length